It would be too much to summarize here the theologies of Tillich and Hauerwas. But I'll do enough to illustrate their conflict and why, in my opinion, they need each other.
Again, Tillich was a liberal theologian. Tillich privileged human experience, unpacking traditional religious categories as universal existential concerns.
For example, here's a passage from Tillich's famous essay "The Lost Dimension in Religion" which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in 1958 (Hauerwas would have been 18 at time):
The decisive element in the predicament of Western man in our period is his loss of the dimension of depth. Of course, "dimension of depth" is a metaphor. It is taken from the spatial realm and applied to man's spiritual life. What does it mean?
It means that man has lost an answer to the question: What is the meaning of life? Where do we come from, where do we go to? What shall we do, what should we become in the short stretch between birth and death? Such questions are not answered or even asked if the "dimension of depth" is lost. And this is precisely what has happened to man in our period of history. He has lost the courage to ask such questions with an infinite seriousness--as former generations did--and he has lost the courage to receive answers to these questions, wherever they may come from.
I suggest that we call the dimension of depth the religious dimension in man's nature. Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt. Such an idea of religion makes religion universally human, but it certainly differs from what is usually called religion. It does not describe religion as the belief in the existence of gods or one God, and as a set of activities and institutions for the sake of relating oneself to these beings in thought, devotion and obedience. No one can deny that the religions which have appeared in history are religions in this sense. Nevertheless, religion in its innermost nature is more than religion in this narrower sense. It is the state of being concerned about one's own being and being universally.
Notice how existential and anthropological these moves are. "Being religious" does not mean being confronted by Barth's "Wholly Other" God. "Being religious" is, rather, "asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence." There is no object of metaphysical belief here, no ontological encounter, no God who is addressing us. And Tillich is explicit on this point: "being religious" doesn't mean "belief in the existence of gods or one God." "Being religious" just means "being concerned about one's own being." Elsewhere, Tillich would describe religion as having an "ultimate concern." "God" becomes that which we are most and ultimately concerned about. The concern above all concerns.
Can you hear Karl Barth rolling over in his grave?
The worry, again, is humanistic capture. If God and religion are just what humans are concerned about, then we end up worshipping ourselves. And that's precisely how religion goes sideways, like it did in Nazi Germany.
For his part, Hauerwas is not a systematic theologian, unlike Barth. Hauerwas is a theological ethicist, with a particular focus on virtue ethics. Consequently, most of Hauerwas' writing has been topical. One of his biggest topics has been his robust defense of Christian pacifism. Crucially for Hauerwas, Christian pacifism is an ecclesial witness where the alternative politics of Christ's peaceable kingdom become visible, in prophetic contrast and indictment, over against the war-making of the nation-state. Hauerwas' concern with Tillich is that Tillich's existentialism is unable to bring the particular politics of the kingdom, in its radical commitment to nonviolence, into view, and is too anemic, given its eschewing of a thick ecclesiology, to form the virtues required for such a radical witness (e.g., willingly embracing martyrdom). For Hauerwas, Christian pacifism is the very embodiment of what we mean by "cruciformity," Christ's acceptance of death rather than wielding the sword. And according to Hauerwas, there is nothing in Tillich's vision of "being concerned about one's being" that gets us to this ethical witness, nor forms us into a people able to carry it out. For Tillich, everyone is religious because everyone has an "ultimate concern." For Hauerwas, the issue isn't about being vaguely "religious." It is, rather, being Christian in a very particular way, a way that conforms to the nonviolence of Jesus.
So you see the battle lines and can hear the argument. Given this antagonism, why do I think Paul Tillich and Stanley Hauerwas need to kiss?
My earliest attraction to theology, in college, was through Tillich. As regular readers know, as a young person I was deeply attracted to existentialism. Early on, this was an interest in existential philosophy. During my graduate training in psychology this became an attraction to existential psychology. Viktor Frankl. Ernest Becker. Irvin Yalom. Consequently, when I encountered Tillich, a theological voice speaking in the register of existentialism, I was hooked. So when Tillich writes that "being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt," he was speaking directly into my heart. From my teenage years on, I was a person who has passionately asked questions about the meaning of our existence.
This existentialism can be found in much of my empirical research and first three books, Unclean, The Authenticity of Fatih, and The Slavery of Death. And it's this existential strain in my thinking that contributes to my theological liberalism and progressivism to this day. My theological thinking began with existentialism, Tillich, and liberalism. And my training as a psychologist biases my thinking toward human experience as I navigate the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.
Later on, however, I encountered Karl Barth and Hauerwas, along with all sorts of other theological voices, from Augustine to Thomas Aquinas. These encounters didn't knock the liberal out of me, but they did chasten my humanistic optimism. While I was, at heart, an existentialist, I also knew that the cruciform shape of the Christian life was deeply counterintuitive and paradoxical. I've always ended my books with a call to love, but the shape of that love is, to use a Barthian word, a "crisis" for humanism. Humanism reduces love toward a bland, inoffensive tolerance. But the vision of love we behold upon the cross is, to borrow from Fyodor Dostoevsky, a "harsh and dreadful thing." And the saints whom I most admired, because they put this love into practice, people like Dorothy Day, could never be mistaken for a "liberal humanist."
But that didn't mean I jettisoned my existentialism. In fact, over the last decade it has become clear to me that existentialism has become the leading edge of post-Christian evangelism. The demise of the New Atheists. Rising deaths of despair. The Jordan Peterson phenomenon. The crisis of meaning among young people. Our mental health crisis. Everywhere you look, people are "asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence," and are struggling to come up with good answers. In short, Tillich is back. That doesn't mean we end with Tillich. We've learned our lessons from Barth and Hauerwas. But in a post-Christian context evangelism will often start with Tillich.
As I described it in the last post, the Word of God must resonate with us, must be warm with possibility. And much of that warmth will come from our search for purpose and meaning. And yet, that existential attunement must push on to cruciformity, toward that vision of "true humanity" that comes into view in the life of Jesus.
In short, Tillich and Hauerwas need each other.
Time to pucker up for a smooch.
